Burevestnik
(also
Iturup
;
Japanese
:
天寧飛行場
,
Tennei-hik?jy?
) (
IATA
:
BVV
,
ICAO
:
UHSB
) is a military air base on
Iturup Island
,
Russia
, establishing Soviet/Russian presence on the disputed South
Kuril Islands
with the largest airfield in the region. It is also the former Soviet Union's most remote interceptor base. An Army helicopter combat support squadron was also stationed at the airfield in the early 1980s, providing limited fire support and transport capability. Burevestnik's communications and logistics were tied to
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
and supplies were flown in weekly on
Antonov An-12
aircraft.
The base is home to a detachment of the
18th Army Aviation Brigade
which flies the
Mil Mi-8
AMTSh under the
11th Air and Air Defence Forces Army
.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
During
World War II
, Burevestnik was a Japanese airfield known as
Tennei Airfield
.
[2]
After Soviet re-occupation, as many as 100 aircraft were observed at any given time from 1945 to 1952.
[2]
By the early 1960s,
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
and
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17
jet fighters from the
308th Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO
(IAP) of the
Soviet Air Defence Forces
were based at the airfield.
[2]
In 1965, the runway was lengthened from 1930 m (6350 ft) to approximately 2500 m (8200 ft).
[2]
During the 1970s, it flew
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21bis
.
[4]
Burevestnik's close proximity to Japan's highly populated
Hokkaid?
Island, by only 190 km, and to major aviation corridors kept the base in a state of constant alert. In 1968, an American
Douglas DC-8
was forced to land here after straying off course in the
Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253
incident. In April 1983, Burevestnik's
MiG-21s
were alerted due to a close approach of American
Grumman F-14 Tomcat
aircraft but did not take off due to bad weather.
[
citation needed
]
The
41st Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO
, flying MiG-23MLs (1983?90) and MiG-23MLDs (1990?1994), originally at Sovetskaya Gavan's Postavaya airfield, swapped with the 308th IAP in April 1983, under the control of 40 IAD (1983?86), 24th Air Defence Division (1986?90) and then finally
72nd Air Defence Corps
(1990?94).
[5]
In 1993 the PVO decided to withdraw its 40 MiG-23 aircraft at Burevestnik, and the 41st was disbanded in late 1994.
[6]
The decision was said in the Russian press to come as good news to its pilots, as the failure of the MiG-23's single R-35 turbojet engine would be "the last failure in the pilot's life", and that a ship or submarine would come by three days after the accident at best. The Russian article also described Burevestnik as a bare-base facility, with no hangars, and aircraft "rusting year-round under the open sky".
[7]
On 17 September 2014, new
Iturup Airport
[8]
was opened 7 km (4.3 mi) northeast of the town of
Kurilsk
.
[9]
After that
Burevestnik Airport
remains as a military base and a reserve airfield for Iturup.
[10]
Currently, the airfield is considered operational, and the aviation commandant’s office is operational.
Airlines and destinations
[
edit
]
There is no longer any passenger traffic scheduled after
Aurora
moved its
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
route to newly opened
Iturup Airport
.
[11]
References
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
"Burevestnik (UHSB)"
. Scramble.nl
. Retrieved
25 November
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Burevestnik Airfield, 6 June 1965, Document CIA-RDP78T05929A001000060004-0, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC.
- ^
Central Intelligence Agency (1985).
Soviet Military Forces in the Far East: National Intelligence Estimate 11-14/40-81, TOP SECRET, declassified 1999
. Central Intelligence Agency.
- ^
Michael Holm,
41st Fighter Aviation Regiment PVO
, accessed 2016.
- ^
"News Breaks", Aviation Week and Space Technology, August 2, 1993
- ^
I. Kots, "Islands in Shoulderboards: Whom Is the Military Deterring in the Southern Kurils?" Komsomolskaia pravda, July 28, 1992.
- ^
"Russia opens new airport on Japan-claimed Etorofu Island off Hokkaido"
.
Japan Times
. 18 September 2014.
- ^
"AIP Russian Federation - UHSI KURILSK/Iturup"
(PDF)
(in Russian and English). Federal State Unitary Enterprise Centre of Aeronautical Information. 11 December 2014. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 21 November 2015
. Retrieved
20 November
2015
.
- ^
"New airport on Kuril Iturup Island receives first flight"
.
rbth.com
. 22 September 2014. Archived from
the original
on 16 June 2018
. Retrieved
20 November
2015
.
- ^
"Aurora - on-line timetable"
(in Russian).
flyaurora.ru
. Archived from
the original
on 20 November 2015
. Retrieved
20 November
2015
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Lensky, A.G.; Tsybin, M.M. (2015).
Советские Войска ПВО в последние годы Союза ССР. Часть 3
[
Soviet Air Defense Forces in the last years of the USSR: Part 3
] (in Russian). St. Petersburg: Info Ol.
OCLC
861180616
.
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